Food

Foodie Underground: The Brine Bubble

It was a warm and humid afternoon, and all I wanted was an iced coffee. Being from the Northwest, I’m used to drive-through coffee shops in even the most podunk of towns, but now I was in the heart of the Louisiana Bayou, and there wasn’t any type of coffee shop to be found. Instead there was “The Chill Out,” a small white building facing the road, with a multi-colored flag sporting an ice cream cone hanging from the window and a flashing red light on the porch.

A house turned into a frozen-treat mecca, The Chill Out had a wall facing the road with a long list of “snowball flavors,” ranging from Tiger Blood (I’m not quite sure exactly what that entails!) to watermelon. A snowball is the classic treat of this region, shaved ice doused in sugary flavoring. I assumed this meant sweet, fruity flavors, so my eyes did a double take when I read “dill pickle” on the list. I imagined what dill-pickle sorbet would taste like and cringed. Had I missed something? When had salty brine become an additive to summer iced treats?

But two weeks later, I’m finding that consuming salty, briny, distinctively flavored items out of their normal context isn’t as odd as I thought. In fact, it’s downright popular. Take Kraut Juice for example, found by the foodies over at The Kitchn, which is apparently prevalent in the Midwest. What does one do with kraut juice besides scrunch up your nose and move on? Make some tomato tang and enjoy.

If that doesn’t strike your fancy, how about Pickle Juice Sport? That’s right, you can refuel your electrolytes and prevent cramping after a serious workout with this salty drink.

Not ready for bottled juices? You might want to start easy with something like pickle pops, another delicacy that I had never heard of until the dill pickled snowball fiasco. “We used to freeze pickle juice in ice-cube trays all the time when I was little… it’s sooo good!” exclaimed one friend, a Mississippi native. I have yet to try it, but according to the blogosphere, those pickle pops are all the rage.

Ingredients

Dill pickle juice

Preparation

Fill ice-cube tray with pickle juice, and add in a popsicle stick or toothpick to each cube. Freeze and enjoy.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Post navigation

Take A Peek

A vegan eats a baby’s placenta? I gave birth. No, really. A semi-gigantic future sumo wrestler was born out of the most delicate part of my body. After she appeared, an organ almost as big as her pushed its way through me as well. I have witnesses. Miraculously, I did […]

The other day, I pulled my bicycle up to one of those nouvelle food trucks that are all the rage in these parts and ordered myself a delicious, healthy, organic falafel. While a group of us was standing on the sidewalk devouring our lunches, impromptu conversations among strangers just naturally […]

I love to watch babies, enchanted and giggling, as they gaze at mobiles moving gently above their cribs with every breeze and breath. So I was happy to discover an artist who makes stunning, airy mobiles for grown-up rooms, each a tribute to nature’s most graceful branches, leaves and flowers. […]

Here are some of our favorite quotes to inspire living intentionally and with peace. What’s your favorite? 1. You cannot control the results, only your actions. -Allan Lokos 2. The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness […]

These Animal Farm tumblers are made from recycled wine bottles and we, well are lusting. The pig said “oink.” The sheep went “baaaa.” The cow sighed “moo” and these tumblers make us go, “ah.” Both whimsical and irresistible, no two cows are ever the same. That’s because they’re hand-sketched on […]

Looking to connect and shape your community? Wondering how to create new social systems? Searching for like-minded, environmentally concerned citizens? Look no further. I’ve found the place you’re looking for: The Hub. The Hub is an international organization with a new platform for innovation and exchange. They aim to combine social […]

More in Food

What' s Intresting

Just when you thought a website like Etsy was fulfilling in satisfying your every desire to buy unique and handmade,Foodzie,a food marketplace shows up and tantalizes us with their “artisanproducers and growers.”Foodzieco-founders Rob LaFave,Nik Bauman and Emily Olson (twentysomethings all) started the online farmers […]

“Why should the edible biodiversity I found at the market become a subject for a book by a sociologist and not just ingredients for a pleasurable dinner?” This sentence from the introduction of “Edible Memory” from Jennifer A. Jordan is the perfect starting point for this intricate yet very readable anthropological […]

Is this a meat destined for the dinner tables of the 21st Century? Eaten in parts of Italy, Korea, Madagascar, Spain and China, it’s allegedly tastier than chicken, rabbit or pigeon…and it’s available worldwide in vast quantities. The name of this super-food? Brace yourself. It’s cat. Midway through an episode […]

Putting summer’s bounty to good use. On a cool Sunday morning I was in the middle of rows upon rows of raspberries. Summer means u-pick season, and there’s something about standing in a field of berries that inevitably leads to overdose. Pick one, eat one, repeat. An hour and a […]

When it comes to talking and writing about what we eat, how much power do we really have to change the food world? I am bored with food writing. There, I said it. Bored. Why? Because I continually ask myself: how much more is there to say? And with whatever […]

“What’s good here?” I asked my friend as we sat down to a crowded and lively brewpub in San Francisco. “Fried brussel sprouts,” she responded. “Excuse me?” My eyebrows shot up and scrunched together as I looked around at this place that believed in white linen table clothes and handpicked, […]

A look at food intolerances, food sensitivities and how we need to look closer at our daily diet. When it comes to American food culture, perhaps the very embodiment of our cuisine – Burger King – sums it up it best: have it your way. We can have Italian for […]

If you don’t know who David Wolfe is yet, you’re in for a treat as he’s a guest on the Pete Holmes Show. (I had no idea who Pete was!) David gives the lowdown on edibles in the park and some enlightening nutritional information about superfoods and just how many […]

There are all sorts of gardens you can grow. And we’re big fans of all kinds of gardens here. But when we heard about the cocktail garden concept, we got very excited. To find out more about the cocktail garden concept, we interviewed one of the minds behind the idea: […]

Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates are among the ranks of affordable and highly-accessible snacks that still retain an air of sophistication. Each piece of Ferrero Rocher is individually packaged with a hazelnut and chocolate crust that reveals a chocolate mousse filling bearing a surprise whole hazelnut at the center. The textures […]

ColumnFava beans are a seasonal superfood you should make time to enjoy. People who don’t like to spend time in the kitchen tend to think that fava beans were surely invented by some sort of cooking sadist. I have a farmer friend who grows them and she won’t even prep […]

The future of the quintessential French farmers market is facing big challenges. If you followed shoppers at Joël Thiébault’s stand at the Marché President Wilson home, you could find yourself in any number of places; a neighboring posh apartment in the swanky 16th arrondissement, a hidden kitchen in the trendy […]

A traditional Passover Seder plate always includes a charoset recipe. Charoset comes in many different variations, but is based in apples, dried fruit, nuts and sometimes (and whole-heartedly welcomed) wine. It’s a delicious and hearty way to fill up without going overboard. Many charoset recipes call for sugar, but rest […]

Handmade, organic chocolates straight from California. Do you look for justifications for your obsessions? I do. In fact, I was so ecstatic to learn recently that drinking coffee might actually help us stave off depression, so I filled up another French press. Chocolate is no different. Get the dark, raw […]

Nigella Lawson, one of my absolute favorite celeb chefs, got me hooked on her pavlova recipe. I made it so many times that I began to adapt it as I went along. The recipe below is a reflection of all this toying around. The dessert is like a work of […]

Caramel sauce is essentially sugar that has been melted down to a brown liquid. To make it more palatable and easy to work with, it is then traditionally mixed with butter and cream. Ultimately, the sauce is a recipe that does little for your health and more for your muffin […]

Celebratory summer dinners that allows guests to learn where their food comes from. An organic dinner of farm raised ingredients. A table full of jovial guests and local wine. A summer night to appreciate good food and where it comes from. There’s a lot of talk about farm-to-table, and most […]

Michelle Pfeiffer revealed to the UK’s Telegraph that when she first came to Hollywood at age 20, she became involved in a cult who called themselves “breatharians”. The now 55-year-old actress explained that when she first met the couple who introduced her to the lifestyle, she thought they were simply […]

Learn the basics of being a food activist. Dr. Marion Nestle was right when she said: Vote with your fork. Every time you make a food choice, you are voting for the kind of food system you want. More voting for sustainable, local, organic would be game changing. It doesn’t […]

People go bonkers for food trucks. And who can blame them? Food trucks typically show up at outdoor events at just the right time (right after you’ve had one too many). Well, there’s a new kind of portable food provider in town, and we think you’re going to like it […]

Posts navigation

What's New

There are some pretty incredible environmental benefits of farming that everyone should know about. There is so much criticism towards farmers for polluting the air, the type of crops they are growing, and for raising their crops a certain way, that the positive things farmers do go unrecognized. Farmers are […]

I have been in a few situations where I haven’t had a wine bottle opener, but I really needed to open a bottle of wine. (And I really wish this video would have existed back then.) Refinery29 made a video that shows three ways you can open a wine bottle […]

In the face of colony collapse disorder, can urban beekeeping projects help us save bees, and our food system? Did you know that 70 out of the top 100 food crops that humans consume — which are responsible for supplying about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition — are pollinated by bees? […]

Tofu is fuss-free and makes it easy for you to get in a vegan meat alternative for protein this summer. But not sure how to barbecue tofu? All you need are these 7 tips and you are minutes away from a juicy tofu “steak” with that yummy grill taste. Whether you’ve […]

EcoSalon’s Made In America Box features items that are made right here in the U.S.A! July is an all-around patriotic month here in the states, so join your fellow eco-friendly patriots with a box of products worth $494.85, for just $129 + free shipping! You see it everywhere: The […]

Posts navigation

Hot Right Now

Signs you might be taking the whole single life thing a little too far. The single life is awesome—the freedom, the endless amounts of “me time,” the fact that wearing pants is no longer mandatory—but there comes a time in every single woman’s life where she starts picking up “single […]

As a kid, I watched a lot of those PBS National Geographic type shows that visited Indigenous cultures around the world. And I always got knots in my stomach when the camera panned over topless women with elongated sagging breasts. It wasn’t the esthetics of it—I was too young to […]

EcoSalon’s Made In America Box features items that are made right here in the U.S.A! July is an all-around patriotic month here in the states, so join your fellow eco-friendly patriots with a box of products worth $494.85, for just $129 + free shipping! You see it everywhere: The […]

Science says men who clean the house have less sex. Here’s why science can suck it. Back in the day—okay, 2013—a study came out that said men who do more chores around the house have less sex than husbands who don’t clean the house as much. (Can I meet the […]

There are a lot of loaded words falling out of people’s mouths these days. Many of these words are gendered and their traditional definitions are awful. Since society is changing… slowly… very slowly… I think it’s time to put a positive spin on these words. I mean, they obviously aren’t […]